Monster Monday - Monster Theme

The boss of a dungeon is an important thing. If you don't know what the boss of the dungeon is, you often end up with a "monster hotel." Today, for a change of pace, I thought I would go through a thought experiment. I am going to take a theme, and build an adventure outline based on that. Because it is Monster Monday, I will stay away from puzzles and traps.

An orcish shaman, recently uncovered an ancient tablet. This tablet pulses in the space between the Elemental Plane of Earth and the Prime Material Plane, bringing creatures to the shaman. He hopes to unlock its secrets, allowing him greater control over the creatures that keep showing up. The monsters travelling through the nearby farmlands should be enough of a plot hook to get adventurers moving.

The adventure is initially easy to populate. Orcs and worgs can be the main enemies approaching the lair. Staying thematically appropriate on the approach is easy, and mutable, depending on where the lair is. In a forest, ankhegs, ants, bear, boar (any real world creature appropriate to the terrain, really), goblins, ogre or owlbear all make thematically appropriate encounters. Adjust accordingly for swamps, mountains, or desert.
While flipping through my monster books, two creatures stood out as particularly interesting to place on the journey to the tablet: brownie (yup, the fairy) and a giant rock weasel. The brownie could be a helpful NPC to guide the party in the correct direction. And the giant rock weasel (Monstrosities, 398) is an excellent foreshadow monster. "Rock Weasels are Giant Weasels that have come into contact with potent transitive magic, becoming attuned to the elemental earths." (Monstrosities, 398,  Andrew Trent, Author)

The mythic underworld of the orc shaman appears straightforward. The elements are so thoroughly covered in D&D (and clones) that it's pretty easy to find monsters and ideas for the dungeon. Breaking into the cavern, the PCs find a fairly normal tribe of orcs. Dealing with them leads to a broken wall, which a few rust monsters live inside. The rust monsters were some of the latest creatures to answer the call of the tablet. Moving a bit deeper, we find a few hill giants, who are displeased to be answering a call from an orc, but are loyal to the master of the tablet. Deeper still, we can add any of the following: bulette, gorgon, medusa, roper, piercer, stone golem, and eventually coming face to face with the orc shaman, and the newly formed earth elemental.

Edible Monsters?

I'm working on my next release for Silver Bulette (Desktop Link), and find myself wondering what types of fantastical monsters are edible?

licensed from Fat Goblin Games

There are pretty much two criteria for "edible" things. One, it needs to be digestible. Two, it needs to not be poisonous. These rules probably hold true in a fantasy world as well. Fetid meat becomes poisonous, so undead flesh is probably out as a delicacy. Intangible things like aerial servants probably don't hold much caloric value. Something like a gelatinous cube probably has too much acid to be a viable food source. A third criteria that I am using for this project is "socially acceptable." What's edible to a starving man is completely different than what is edible to a comfortable person.

But, there are lots of things that might be edible. Take the cockatrice. Is that edible? It's basically a chicken. That can turn things to stone. Can an expert chef prepare a dish from it? How about their eggs? Gorgons are similar, with a breath weapon instead. As long as the person preparing the meal stays away from the lungs and maybe a weird gland, could it be beef stew? What about bulette? Is there soft, yummy meat under their rock-like plating?

Then there is the myriad of plants and plant-like creatures. Tangle-kelp sushi? Shrieker salad?

And the largest question that my third criterion poses is "what about intelligent creatures?" This, by far and large, makes up the bulk of "monsters" in the game: orcs, ogres, trolls, goblins (and their kin), mushroom-men, aboleth, fairies and fey, kobolds, dragons, and so on. The minotaur poses a real question, yummy beef or intelligent cow?

Is it believable to have people refuse to eat intelligent species in a fantasy setting? Would they only be opposed to eating humanoids? Would they believe that eating a superior being gives them a bit of power, and therefore pay extra for dragon meat? Would a ruthless ruler deem a particular species food because of a particular hatred for the race?

Anyone have any thoughts?

As of now, these are the creatures that I have deemed "edible"
Catoblepas
Cockatrice eggs
Dragons
Gorgons
Shriekers
Tangle Kelp

Secret Doors!

Earlier this week, Tenkar posted about secret doors. I put my 2 coppers in there, but since, Peter Dell'Orto also spent some time on the subject. So, I guess I will add to the blog chatter for the week.

I think secret doors are a good thing in D&D (and clones). I do think they are used far too much. It's my opinion that they cannot bar a quest. Nor can they hide something important to the PC's goals. It just turns into a slog of dice rolling at that point, and sucks the fun completely out of the game for a while.

Great treasure, or treasonous secrets should be hidden behind secret doors. I used the example of a shrine to a dark cult in a mansion over at Tenkar's place. A wizard may have a secret study where he keeps a copy of all of his spellbooks, in case his enemies loot his tower.

Now, this being D&D, rules are always broken. A powerful enemy like Strahd will be the exception to the rule about barring quests. There is no reason why a powerful, rich person like Strahd would not hide his coffin behind a difficult to find door. Or a lich might hide a phalacrity behind a secret door.  But, when discussing enemies of that caliber, the heroes should have magics available to help.

So, in Mord Mar, my rules for secret doors are as follows:
1. It needs an original purpose. The secret door in Pickles and Potatoes was to hide the money-counting room.
2. The current resident needs to have the intelligence to use/find/access the secret door. A single ogre will probably not know about the secret door behind his lair, but 200 goblins would eventually stumble across a secret door in their area.
3. Almost everything behind a secret door will be "gravy." That demon's hoard of treasure seem light? Might want to search for secret doors.
4. Intelligent and powerful creatures will use secret doors to their fullest advantage. The party is beating up on the powerful mage a bit to quickly? His iron golem may just pop out of the secret door, and cover his escape.
5. Often ancient things lie behind secret doors. Maybe a long-sleeping undead, or maybe a forgotten relic?
6. The lower in the dungeon you are, the more likely there will be secret doors. The "pre-dungeon" has one secret door on level 1, two on level 2, and three on level 3. The deeper you go, the more likely that a secret door is around.